View Single Post
Old 03-23-2007, 11:55 AM   #50 (permalink)
bluepolaski
Upright
 
bluepolaski's Avatar
 
Location: Boston, MA
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charlatan
Most organized religions are run like a "business".
I cannot say this is entire untrue, but I will defend the fact that some religions accept donations while others require it. The third pillar of Islam states that one must give alms, usually with money or possessions. A man I once knew a long time ago was of a small Protestant sect and was required to donate 10% of his income monthly. I remember him vividly because he had to sell his beautiful Mustang GT to meet this donation requirement, which I thought was a shame.

However, during my childhood as a Catholic I was never required to give anything. I did, but I was never required to.

Religions/cults/whatevers like Scientology require you to spend large sums of money in order to gain wisdom or rise within the church's hierarchy. Audit sessions in the church of scientology can cost $200 per session, and if patrons don't have that money, it isn't forgiven, but they are given loans they must pay back. It has ruin many lives and put many people bankrupt. It's plain wrong in my eyes as the wise would never charge to reveal their knowledge. Socrates never did it, Siddhartha Gautama never did it, never has a wise person throughout history ever required people to pay for knowledge.

We're infected with alien souls killed by the evil lord Xenu? Fine, believe what you want, but coercing people for their money is downright dirty.
__________________
"I never stopped to think of it before, but you know - a policeman will jest stand there an' let a banker rob a farmer, or a finance man rob a workin' man. But if a farmer robs the banker - you'd have a whole darn army of cops out a-shootin' at him. Robbery is a chapter in etiquette." - Woody Guthrie
bluepolaski is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360